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West Virginia still adjusting to the Big 12 Conference

Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports
7:20 p.m. EDT September 5, 2013

West Virginia: Down by 10 points at the half last week to William &amp; Mary, the Mountaineers rallied to narrowly avoid becoming yet another victim of the FCS' assault on FBS teams, but it wasn't reassuring for anyone concerned about the overall direction of the program after last season's second-half slide. Next up, a trip to No. 15 Oklahoma, where Mike Stoops still feels the sting from giving up a school-record 778 yards the last time these teams met. Without Geno Smith, Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey, the odds don't favor a repeat – but does Dana Holgorsen have something up his sleeve?(Photo: Charles LeClaire, USA TODAY Sports)

Story Highlights

West Virginia's escape from a crumbling Big East was perhaps the most dramatic in recent conference realignment

The Mountaineers were able to leverage their nationally relevant football brand into a Big 12 invitation

Expectations have rarely been lower as West Virginia begins its second season of Big 12 play

West Virginia's escape from a crumbling Big East was perhaps the most dramatic in recent conference realignment, as school officials scrambled, U.S. senators publicly squabbled and a race with Louisville for one spot in the Big 12 played out behind the scenes over a frantic week in late October 2011.

Ultimately, the Mountaineers were able to leverage their nationally relevant football brand into a Big 12 invitation, launching them into a much more lucrative and stable conference.

As West Virginia begins its second season of Big 12 play, however, expectations have rarely been lower for the Mountaineers' marquee sports. Its football program, which travels to No. 15 Oklahoma as a big underdog Saturday, appears to be rebuilding. Its basketball team, which made the NCAA Final Four in 2010, finished eighth in the 10-team league last season and will be picked toward the bottom again.

But West Virginia athletics director Oliver Luck declined to blame travel challenges or opponent unfamiliarity with the sudden downturn, and said his department is simply in the middle of a race to meet the standards of a very different conference.

"You have some things that may have taken our kids some time to adjust to, but I've told my coaches and I'll apply it myself as well, that we won't use novelty or travel as an excuse," Luck told USA TODAY Sports in a phone interview this week. "We still need to compete. The Big East was strong, but we're finding much tougher competition, and we have to adjust to that."

West Virginia's experience is not unusual among schools that have made recent conference transitions. Aside from Texas A&M, which unexpectedly shook up the Southeastern Conference last season, newcomers in the Pac 12 (Utah, Colorado), Big 12 (TCU) and SEC (Missouri) all have had some difficulties on the football field.

The difference for the Mountaineers is that they are extreme geographic outliers in the 10-team league, which makes travel more difficult for sports like basketball and limits how far some fans can travel in football. The closest Big 12 campus to Morgantown is Iowa State at 870 miles away.

Though the Big 12 office made some schedule adjustments to help with mid-week road travel in basketball, it's still not as convenient as the Big East, where 11 of the other 15 schools were located within a 500-mile radius. But with no immediate plans for the Big 12 to expand again, Luck said the geographic inconveniences are balanced out by the "commonality" West Virginia has in the Big 12 as opposed to the core of urban schools that made up the Big East.

"West Virginia is a flagship school of a relatively small state, and a lot of our students come from small, rural towns," Luck said. "If you go to Iowa State, both Kansas schools, both Oklahoma schools and Texas Tech … I think that across the board folks would say we're at home in this conference."

The results, however, are still unfamiliar for West Virginia, which went to three BCS bowls in its final seven seasons as a Big East member. It appeared the Mountaineers were on a similar trajectory last season, starting 5-0 including a victory at Texas. But an ensuing five-game losing streak and significant loss of talent to the NFL – including quarterback Geno Smith and his top receivers, Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey – have dampened expectations for this season.

After being picked eighth in the Big 12, the Mountaineers squeaked by William & Mary in their opener, 24-17, and now must travel to the league's toughest venue.

TCU coach Gary Patterson, whose team also had a difficult transitional season in the Big 12, said it would take a full cycle of playing everyone in the league at home and on the road to have a better idea of where the new programs stack up. Though Luck said he agreed with that theory, especially when it comes to factors like wind at Texas Tech that you don't face at Cincinnati, most of the adjustment comes down to facing "bigger, stronger, faster" teams week in and week out.

"We're happy to be in the Big 12, excited about being able to travel to all the different venues," Mountaineers coach Dana Holgorsen said at his weekly news conference. "We got a lot out of that last year, and it starts now in Week 2. I don't know if that's good or bad, but we're going to prepare like we would any other game."

No matter what happens at Oklahoma, though, Luck said it was too early to evaluate West Virginia's progress in catching up to the Big 12.

"Now is really when the hard work comes, which is day in and day out in recruiting, offseason conditioning, everything, getting better to the point where we've all competitive," he said. "It's a tough conference. You're looking for a real sustained period of just getting incrementally better every year, and hopefully that shows in our results. Sometimes it will, sometimes maybe it won't and sometimes we will and the record won't reflect that."

Dan Wolken, a national college football reporter for USA TODAY Sports, is on Twitter @DanWolken.

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